November Update

We started the month with Sophia turning eight years old.  Hard to believe how quickly the years have come and gone.  As she matures she is turning into a remarkable young lady.  She is funny, bright, caring and a joy to be around.

She spent her birthday at the barn doing a camp day seeing school was out.  She had a blast there.  It was a perfect day.   We had her birthday party a couple weeks later.  We had a cooking party at our house with five of her friends.  We made pizza and cupcakes and played cooking related games.  It was fun.  The kids enjoyed themselves and the food.

She competed in her last horse show of the season and placed better this time than in September.  She also took a couple of private lessons at another stable and during one of the lessons they were going over low crossbars and her horse actually jumped them rather than trotting over as expected.  She was thrilled.   We ended the month with a trail ride, Steve, Sophia and I were joined by another family and we went on an hour trail ride over Thanksgiving weekend.  I have a new appreciation of all the work and courage it takes to ride a horse.  You won't see me cantering or going over poles anytime soon!

 Sophia had a career day in school.  She talked about how she wants to be a horse trainer when she grows up. She did a great job presenting her information to the parents.

Aiden spent a weekend with us.  Sophia loves spending time with Aiden.

October Update

We had a very fun filled, jam packed month.  Sophia even asked after being away three weekends in a row, "when are we going to have a calm weekend at home?"

We spent a weekend in Fort Ligonier re-enacting with Steve.  It was a great weekend, despite rain on Friday morning and Sunday afternoon.  Sophia and I stayed in a hotel nearby so we weren't camping in the cold.  We spent our days at the Fort and in the town which has a huge craft fair the same weekend as the re-enactment.  We were even part of a parade in the town.  Sophia had a blast in the parade, shopping and partaking in all the activities in the town.  They had a great firework show on Saturday night.  It was nice to get away.

We also went to Connecticut to visit Grandma.  These visits are always fun.  Sophia made Grandma's famous lemon cookies with her.  That might have been the highlight of the trip.  We celebrated all the fall birthdays with a dinner at Olive Garden and cake.

Steve and Sophia went to NJ to see Aiden in his last high school football band performance while I was away for a workshop.  They stopped to see Nick in Philly on the way home.  Sophia enjoyed seeing her brothers and getting away with Dad.

Sophia was in a fall fun run at school.  She came in 19th out of the 105 second graders.  She loved running and the short dance party after the run.

The month ended with Halloween.  Sophia was a bit worried that Halloween would not be fun seeing she could not eat all her favorite candy with her braces but she did have a blast, both at school and trick-or-treating.  She was Princess Celestia from My Little Pony.  She got enough candy that she could  eat.

September update

Sophia was in two horse shows this month.  The first one was an in-house show.  Sophia placed first in equation and trotting poles.  She placed sixth place in pleasure.

Sophia competed in the mini stirrup division for the first time.  She placed fifth place in all classes.  She looked great to us but I think it was the diagonals that got her.  Either way she had a blast and said "Well at least I have stuff to work on." when she was done.

Steve took Sophia to her first comic book convention.  She dressed up like Princess Celestia from My Little Pony.  Her costume looked great.  She will dress up in this costume for Halloween too.

The school held its annual Fall Festival.  Sophia had a blast.  Abbie joined us for a while.  Sophia is so good with young children.





















Sophia loves animals and No No is no doubt in love with her.

The month ended on a low note.  Grandpa Skip took a turn for the worse and passed away on October 4th.  We got to see Grandpa and told him how much we loved him.  Sophia says her best memories are when we swam in the pool with Grandpa.  He will be missed.

August Update

What's not to love about summer.  We had a great August but it went by too quickly.  

Summer is county and state fair time.  Sophia and I went to the county fair and we joined Heather, Todd and Katlyn for the state fair.  We watched some horse racing at the state fair which was the highlight for Sophia.

Sophia got her braces on the week before school started.  She did amazingly well.  She remained brave throughout her appointment and adjusted to having the braces on in no time.  Her bottom tooth that was coming down in front of her top teeth when biting down moved in less than 24 hours.  It was amazing. She responded, no wonder why it hurt when the orthodontist told her.

Sophia got her hair cut before school started.  She decided to cut it short.  It looks really cute and is so much easier to take care of.  The cut makes her look older.

 Our our way to Hershey we  went to a privately owned zoo.  There was a safari ride and we got to feed animals.  This was a lot of fun.   

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We went to Hershey Park this year.  .Sophia loved the tour at Chocolate World best of all.   She doesn't like to eat chocolate but loved the tour.  We had fun at the water park and some of the smaller rides.  Steve tried to coax her onto the smaller roller coasters but that didn't happen.

Sophia started school the last week of August.  She likes her teacher and is grouped with one of her best friends.  A good start to second grade.

My 98 Honda Civic, Bessie, finally needed to be sold.  The repairs were becoming more frequent and we couldn't keep putting money into the car.  It served me well.  It had 229,000 miles on it!!   We stuck with a Honda.  I am now driving a 09 CRV.  It is nice to be driving a "new" car.  

July update

The summer is flying by.  It has been a very busy and fun-filled month.  Well, mostly fun.  Sophia started her orthodontic treatment.  She has a palate expander in and will be getting partial braces before school starts.  Getting the palate expander in was a painful process.  The spacers hurt.  Taking the impression was horrible.  The expander going in was HARD but once it was in she handled it like a champ.  It took a couple of days to get used to talking and eating with it but other than that it has been easy for her.  The turning of the expander was stressful.  Finding the tiny hole in the expander was difficult.  It took forever and Sophia was patient the entire time.  Thankfully we only had to turn it for three weeks.

We traveled to Connecticut to visit Grandma Barb.  We hit our usual places, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Christmas Tree Shop and Olive Garden.   We went to Friendly's and Sophia ordered an adult sized hamburger and ate the entire thing!   We saw Linda, Chuck, Stephanie and Hollie.  We went to the carnival at OLOV.  Sophia had a blast.  I got to see Maureen, Kathleen and her son and Steven there.  I even saw Susan G who I hadn't seen in years.  We connected on Facebook and planned to meet at the carnival.  The fried dough pizza was even better than I remembered.  It was a great visit.

Sophia loves cleaning at Grandma's

We had a pool party for the Brownies.  It was Sophia's turn to get Daisy Bear.  She will have her all summer and journal about her adventures with Daisy Bear.

We had our China Sister Reunion. All six families made it for at least part of the weekend.  We went to the retreat center again.  The girls all got along so nicely.  They have so much fun together.  We went swimming and on a trail ride.  Sophia wanted to design shirts online and have everyone wear it at the reunion.  We ended up making our own.  She picked out the design and we ironed it on.  The kids then all signed the back of the t-shirt.  We took our annual "red couch" picture in them.  I am amazed with how creative and thoughtful Sophia can be.